I spent the first half of my life trying to be an athlete so I could become the second woman after Mary Lou Retton to appear on the front of a Wheaties box. I failed at that, and softball, basketball, volleyball, track, ice skating and cheerleading in the process. Looking back, the only thing amazing about my persistent pursuit of sporting glory was my lack of self-awareness. I only ever made a team after my second time trying out, when I showed up the next year with my much more athletic younger sister. (True story: she played as my proxy on Forbes' softball team one season.) After my closest attempt at sporting success came in a spelling bee (thank you ESPN for televising and giving that sport cred), I finally decided to take the advice of all those coaches who told me I had the brains and benchwarmer's big mouth better suited for sideline competition. Now after studying business at Drexel University and journalism at NYU, I compete for bylines, primarily writing about the business of sports. As for my sporting endeavor, I decided to focus on the one where I only compete with myself: running. I can be seen crossing the finish line of my front door celebrating my first place victory a few mornings a week...then eating a bowl of Wheaties, because "that's what big girls eat."

1/11/2013 @ 11:35AM11,731 views

Caroline Pla, 11-Year Old Football Player, Discriminated Against By The Catholic Church

In September 2012, two games into the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Catholic Youth Organization’s football season, coach Chip Ross of Romans in Doylestown, PA, got an unexpected and unpleasant call about one of his players. Jason Budd, the Deputy Secretary in the Archdiocese’s Office of Education who oversees the CYO program, told him that 11-year old, sixth grader Caroline Pla, a Junior Varsity player, was not allowed on the team and had to be removed from the roster immediately. Citing the CYO handbook, Budd said football is a full-contact sport designated for boys. The Archdiocese claimed, without sourcing, that this was a necessary safety measure.

Up until that point, no one in the Romans Football organization was aware this rule existed. “It never crossed our minds,” said Jim Reichwein, Pla’s former JV football coach, her current basketball coach and father of her best friend. He said he had a handbook and he recalls most of the language used male pronouns but that he never read anything explicitly stating ‘no girls allowed’. “And at no point did anyone say ‘no way’ when she signed up and first showed up,” he added.

Maybe that was because no one that knew Pla or her family had ever thought anything unusual of her playing. She fell in love with the sport as a 3-year old who used to tag along to her older brother’s Pop Warner games and recalls telling his coach that one day she would play too. True to her word, when Pla turned 5-years old she asked, and her parents enrolled her in that youth organization’s flag football program. She spent four more seasons progressing through divisions there. She even played with one or two other girls along the way, in the organization that allows co-ed play all the way up to its 11-12-13-14-year old, 105-pound division.

“Girls make up 1-2% of our total football playing population across all age groups in any given year,” said Josh Pruce, Pop Warner’s National Director of Media Relations. “We welcome girls who want to play football.”

Pla’s parents, Seal and George, recall only wondering about their daughter’s safety once, before she moved into the 70-pound weight tackle division as a second grader. So her father decided to coach the team to make sure she would be alright. After his first time seeing her play with the other kids, George confidently reported back to Seal that Caroline had no problem holding her own.

In 2011 when Pla entered fifth grade at her local public school, she joined her church’s CYO team. Reflecting on her entire seven seasons playing the sport, most recently as a defensive end and offensive guard, she recalls no major incidents or injuries.

“Just the normal bumps and bruises,” said the 5-feet, 3-inches tall girl, one of the tallest on her team, in response to being asked about ever getting hurt. “I did put a hit on a boy when I was 7- or 8-years old that resulted in him getting a concussion though.”

Of course there were boys on opposing teams along the way who would taunt her for being a girl, or her teammates for playing with a girl. But the girl poised beyond her 11 young years dealt with it with a level head and explained that revenge was best taken out on the field in the next play. That and her supportive teammates usually handled things and smack talked back for her.

It was baffling then to the Plas why all of a sudden Caroline playing became an issue in CYO. After all, it was her second season on the team. Both years she followed the proper protocol to join. She was a registered and active member of one of the five Catholic churches that made up the Romans Football team, filled out the necessary form with all her vital information including her gender, got her parents’ permission who signed off on both a concussion and sudden cardiac arrest waiver, paid a registration fee, and had her paperwork appropriately filed with the CYO office.

She never hid her gender from anyone, she never sought attention for being a girl on the team, and no one ever had any problem with her. Rather, no one on her team, in charge of her team, in charge of CYO, or in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia had any problem with her until that point. But the perception the Romans Football organization got from the phone call from the Archdiocese was that one of their recent opponents did and they successfully forced the issue to have Pla removed.

After Seal and George Pla were told the bad news, they immediately set out to challenge the decision. George and Coach Ross corresponded back and forth for a week with Budd. Included in their arguments was a letter of support for Caroline from Monsignor Joseph Gentili, the pastor in charge of their church, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Also included was a copy of a letter Caroline had written to the program at the end of the previous season, expressing her joy for playing and thanking the organization.

“We pleaded, are you really now going to kick off this 11-year old with this kind of support and character who has been playing for over a year and working hard?” said Seal Pla. “We tried to appeal to common sense and asked Budd to consider the kind of message the Archdiocese was sending with this ban.”

Budd and the Archdiocese conceded and agreed to let Pla finish the season, but said no more CYO football for her after that.

Pla’s parents and coaches decided to wait to tell Caroline and her teammates about the situation until the end of the season, to spare her feelings. They all agreed there was no need to make an 11-year old feel unwanted because of what they felt was the poor judgment of a few who had never seen her play, especially when they had seen performance from her that displayed the exact opposite about her worthiness on the team.

Seal finally broke the news to Caroline after a second-round playoff loss. Both mother and daughter recall her initial reaction was the same.

“What about Gracie?” She being the 4th grader who had started following Caroline around at practices, talking to her about how she was going to play just like her. Gracie wanted to play next season when she was in 5th grade. If Caroline couldn’t, that meant Gracie couldn’t either.

“She’s a good sized girl and she wants to play,” said the young Pla. “It’s not fair if she doesn’t get her chance just because she’s a girl.”

For the team’s final game of the season, a consolation playoff game the Romans won to capture third place in their CYO region, Pla was named sole captain. In a show of support and to her surprise, at the start of the game as she stood in the center of the field with the opposing team captain, her teammates ceremoniously locked hands and stood behind her.

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If your only issue with the article is the title (that is, you have no issue with the legal analysis showing Caroline is covered under Title IX to play and entitled to play), than I am happy with that. Your suggested title would be inaccurate, as you know since you read the story. Specifically I wrote that Budd, the man in charge of the entire Archdiocese’s CYO program, AND the Archdiocese made the decision to ban her and later, to permit her to finish the season. Having been raised Catholic and attended 12 years of Catholic school run by a Catholic diocese, I was made fully aware that the parish where I was a member and the schools where I was taught were members of the diocese and that diocese was part of the whole Catholic Church. So there was zero attempt or intention for this to be sensational. Any semantics argument otherwise is truly baseless and detracts from the real issue here.

My issue is that you, like many others with access to a huge media outlet like Forbes, branded the “Catholic Church” as discriminatory against yet another female, this young lady who wants to play football with the boys. To attract the reader to an otherwise interesting story, you fell into the “Catholic Church wages war against women” routine that we hear and read constantly. The fact that you attended Catholic school does not sanctify each word you write. I went to Catholic school through college, and am a lawyer, but that doesn’t make every one of my closing arguments an encyclical. At last learn to admit your headline was sensationalistic and misleading. Admit it and regain some integrity.

My headline was neither sensationalist nor misleading. The story that fully supports the headline isn’t either. Lawyers like yourself checked to make sure. Calling an Archdiocese the Catholic Church is acceptable and reasonable, and your attempt to negate my personal knowledge of this is something that lacks integrity. Nothing about me, this story or this title does. By trying to profess otherwise, isn’t that a violation of the 9th commandment? But as with my story, I’m not going to pass moral judgment. Just used the facts and legal analysis available, all substantiated by the parties involved. So again, if your only issue is that the title wasn’t long enough to satisfy your needs to understand the issues in this story, especially considering your legal background, I’m perfectly fine with that.

Interesting article. When I was in High School in the 80′s, they allowed women to play on baseball and football teams with boys. The interesting thing is that the high school did NOT allow boys to play on girls volleyball teams. I recall a boy 6’9″ who was well coordinated and tried out for the volleyball team, but to no avail.

I would be very interested in how school districts would treat these kind of cases in terms of discriminatory or not.

I would be interested to find out as well. My understanding is that he would be covered under Title IX too. But its hard without more details to know why he wasn’t allowed on the team. But I can say as a former HS volleyball player on an all-girls team, I would have loved a 6’9″ guy on our team.

Title IX does not apply to males. A boy can legally be denied the right to play on a team that is designated as girl’s even if there is not boy’s team (field hockey, volleyball). The state of PA just changed their rule as of this school year. Since PA had gender equality written into their state laws, boys could play on girls’ teams and visa versa. There were about 400 girls on boys’ teams and 90 boys on girls’ teams. The reason so few boys play is that there is no benefit. This year the 90 boys were essentially kicked off of their teams, maybe the girls should have sit outs to protest the way Taimi Maida team plan to sit out in 1981 when she could not play on the football team.

Of course there is a reason. There is men’s NCAA volleyball. A boy who plays on a girl’s team, even if he were all-state would not even get looked at. It is estimated that by 11th grade 85% of boys could make any girl’s varsity team (outside of gymnastics and tennis) and 60% would be starters and 40% would be all-state. The article says that there are 1600 girls on boy’s football teams in the US (about 0.15%), if there are girls than the sport is not a boy’s sport but a coed sport. However, outside of kickers about 98% of the girls are strictly photo ops when they come into play in the fourth quarter of lopsided games. Not one girl in football has any impact on her team’s winning ability and if she played regularly she would cost the team games. Even in tennis a boy ranked 300th in the state could beat the number one girl in straight sets. In MA, where they allow both sexes to cross over, all eight teams in the field hockey finals had boys and the winning team started three (two of them play ice hockey in the winter). Coaches are now recruiting boys as the prediction is that in 10 if a team is all-girls, they will lose to any mixed team. A team with two boys will beat every all-girls team easily even if the nine remaining girls are mid-level. No baseball, football, wrestling coach recruits girls. In football, not one of the 1600 girls helped their team (they were essentially bench warmers and PR for the media). Even the kickers had little impact as HS football does not rely on kickers. In baseball, 90% of the girls playing are pitchers and any other position requires too much upper body strength. Even the top pitchers who are on national teams (Chelsea Baker, Sarah Hudek) are average compared to the boys on their teams. However, once you go to county teams, they are barely on the radar. Martina Samentelli recently pitched in the women’s world cup, shutting down Japan (all full time pros) for 5 innings. She is now a college senior and was cut after her first year from her team (NAIA). Thus the top female in the country can not even make a small NAIA team (Montreat). Only in wrestling do girls somewhat succeed and mainly in the bottom weight class (103 – 106 lbs). However, as I said about by 11th grade, virtually none of their victories have been against 11th/12th graders as by that age virtually no boy makes those weights and those that do easily beat the girls. Most of the boys in that class of pre-developed and by the time they hit 50%, they are too much for girls.

The USA national women’s soccer team in 2011 (for the world’s cup) trained against 14/15 year old boys. It has been said that an all county HS boys basketball team could beat any WNBA team. Pat Summit in the 1980s recruited men to train against her team (NCAA top 5 every year). Her rule was every man being used had to be better than all of her players. She had no trouble getting 100+ trying out with that rule. Of course the 100+ who tried out couldn’t have make the 5th scrub team for the men’s, otherwise they would have attempted to be the 12th man. HS boys track racers outrace the women who win the gold medals in Olympics.

“The Catholic Church” that makes a huge generalization, an Archdiocese does not represent the whole of Catholicism nor The Catholic Church like you make it sound. Using generalizations in support of your article makes your argument circular because you want to change a discrimination by using one.

I neither generalized/discriminated against anyone in the article nor tried to use reverse discrimination in support of any argument. I presented the facts of the situation as they unfolded as verified by all parties involved, and then the legal analysis that supports Caroline is being discriminated against and all girls should be allowed to play. Your statement therefore is completely incorrect.

Well hell… These guys are ridiculous… I wanted to play football at school when I was little with all the boys at recess and they were constantly throwing out rules that I was a girl and they were afraid id get hurt, so I gave up… Now I play Roller Derby and I laugh in the faces of all the boys that cry about a bruise during football in high school. If a girl signs up to play in ANY sport, they should let her. If she knows what she’s getting into, why should some high and mighty jerk say she cant? I’m familiar with the catholic religion but I can never bring myself to actively follow it because of all the stupid crap the church and the Vatican do. I say if a little girl wants to play football, let her. She’ll probably whoop the boys anyway.

As the mother of female football player, Erin DiMeglio, I understand the concern for safety. However, Erin sustained many more injuries playing girls high school basketball than she ever did playing on her boys high school football team. I was the hold out in signing the consent- but after the discussing with the coach and the support of the players, I agreed to allow her to play. SHe did get some bruises, but concussions and fractured nose and finger came from girls basketball. Erin earned her position on the team adn participated in each adn every work-out including two-a-days inthe South Florida summer heat. If this young lady has the support and encouragement of her family she be allowed to play. I am sure they are aware of the risks involved. As long as she can compete and earn her position.